Seminar questions are provided below. The given bibliographies are mere suggestions, a place
to start. Compiling a useful list of references is a help for fellow
students and an important part of the assignment.

1. Apostles

What is an apostle? What are the qualifications of an apostle? What does an apostle do?
Give biographies of the apostles Peter and John.

Bibliography

Barclay, William. The Master's Men: Character Sketches of the
Disciples. New York: Abingdon, 1959.

———. The Community of the Beloved Disciple: The Life, Loves, and Hates
of an Individual Church in New Testament Times. New York: Paulist, 1979. See
the index entry on “Authorship of Johannine writings.”

8. Sources

What verbal and written sources (e.g. sayings, scriptures, tracts) were used for the
letters of Peter and John? Are the letters of Peter and John literary units or compilations of
multiple source documents?

9. Rhetoric

What in the (Graeco-Roman) world is rhetoric? Who learnt it? Why did they learn it?
Present some common rhetorical devices. Were the letters of Peter and John influenced by
people with rhetorical training? Who might they have been?

9.1. The Ancient Art of Rhetoric

The Greco-Roman world was an oral, not literate culture. Literacy rates were low with
only a small proportion (one in ten?) able to read and write. However, nearly everyone could
speak and listen. This oral culture provided the backdrop for rhetoric, the art of
persuasion. Aristotle defined rhetoric as “the faculty of discovering the possible
means of persuasion in any subject whatsoever” while Quintilian said it was
“the art speaking well.”[1]

Learning the art of rhetoric was an essential part of education: “There were not
only schools of rhetoric throughout the Mediterranean crescent, rhetoric itself was part
of elementary, secondary, and tertiary basic education as well.”[2] Rhetorical education was normally restricted to males of the elite. While there
were a few rhetorically trained women, they “were not in general either encouraged or
in some cases allowed to pursue 'higher' education, which means that even wealthy women
tended to lack rhetorical training beyond the intermediate or even
progymnasmata level.”[3] (Progymnasmata were exercises used to learn
elementary rhetoric.) This might help to explain why Paul wrote “αἰσχρον γαρ ἐστιν
γυναικι λαλειν ἐν ἐκκλησιᾳ” at 1 Cor 14.35.

There were various reasons for learning the art of persuasion. A professional
rhetor could make a decent living as a legal representative
or by delivering speeches to honour one person or shame another. More generally, learning
rhetoric enabled a man to convince others about what he believed to be important.

Demosthenes was regarded as the greatest exponent of rhetoric in the ancient world.
Early in his career, he was laughed out of court after a poorly delivered speech. This made
him determined to become a powerful speaker:

He understood now that he must not only compose his orations with care, but that he
must deliver them well, and that he must get rid of his awkward ways. He set to work again
with fresh courage. He built himself an underground study, and there he used to practice
his orations over and over again. For fear he should be tempted to go out, he would
sometimes shave one side of his head, so that he could not appear on the street. He cured
his disagreeable stammering by speaking with his mouth full of pebbles. He learned to
control his voice by delivering speeches while running up a steep hillside; and he
strengthened it to overpower the tumult of the people by making speeches to the ocean in
the midst of the thunder of the waves. He hung a naked sword in such a way that if he
hunched up his shoulder in the least, he would be pricked; and he practiced while standing
before a mirror, that he might learn not to twist and distort his face. He wrote his
orations ten or twelve times; and at last he became an orator, one of the greatest that
ever lived.[4]

9.2.1. Macro-Scale Rhetorical Structures

“Ethos was all about establishing the
speaker's character and making clear he was trustworthy and
believable.”

Logos

“Logos refers to the real meat of the
discourse, its emotion-charged arguments. In Greek arguments were called
pistoi, interestingly enough.”

Pathos

“At the end of the discourse the rhetorician needed to appeal to the deep
emotions — love or hate, grief or joy, anger or pity — and so create
pathos in the audience in order for the hearers
to embrace the arguments not merely intellectually but affectively as well. When
that happened, the act of persuasion had achieved its aim of winning over the
whole person or group — body and soul.”

Forensic and deliberative rhetoric could also be divided as follows:[8]

Introduction (προοιμιον, exordium)

“The introduction acknowledged the situation, addressed the audience, and
established the ethos of the speaker.”

Narrative (διηγησισ, narratio)

“The statement of the case rehearsed the circumstances, clarified the
issue (stasis), and established the proposition
with a reason (aitia, ratio).” (That is, the
speaker stated the case and said why it was being proposed.)

Confirmation (πιστισ, confirmatio)

“The argumentation arranged the evidence and supplied examples construed
according to customary strategies... In a judicial speech the argument could also
anticipate the proofs of one's opponent and refute them.” This part of the
discourse typically included proof by opposites, analogy, example, and authority.
Opposites might be “negative contrasts, dissuasions from alternative points of
view, charges against those of opposing views, dialectical maneuvers in the
interest of verifying the logic of a proposition, censure of the opposite
proposition, showing that the opposite case would not make any sense, and so
forth.” Analogy and example enhanced a proof, as did appeal to legal,
scriptural, literary, and philosophical authorities.

Conclusion (ἐπιλογοσ, peroratio)

“The conclusion summarized the argument and pressed for its acceptance. It
might include impassioned style, exhortation, spelling out of consequences of a
decision, or advice.”

Epideictic rhetoric did not always have the narrative part because it was concerned
with praise and blame related to existing circumstances and beliefs.“”

9.2.2. Micro-Scale Rhetorical Devices

A discourse would also include rhetorical devices at the scale of phrases, sentences,
and paragraphs. Examples include alliteration (repetition of the same sound in nearby
words), chiasmus (arrangement of parallel phrases in the pattern of an X; e.g. A B C C B
A), the rhetorical question (one with an expected answer), hyperbole (a statement
exagerated for effect), personification (where an object or idea is represented as a
person), amplification (a sequence of successively stronger phrases), irony (speaking to
imply the opposite of what one says), enthymemes (logical proofs in which some parts are
not stated), and so on.[9]

9.3. Rhetoric in the Letters of Peter and John

The New Testament documents are full of rhetorical structures and devices. Although the
opening and closing of most New Testament books follow the conventions of Graeco-Roman
correspondence, macro- and micro-scale rhetorical forms can often be discerned within the
body. The New Testament documents may therefore be described as rhetorical discourses
wrapped inside written correspondence.

9.3.1. 1 Peter

Witherington thinks that 1 Peter has the structure of deliberative rhetoric:[10]

Letter Opening (1.1-2)

From Peter, Apostle of Jesus Christ, to God's scattered people in Asia
Minor.

Introduction (1.3-12)

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who gave us new birth
into a living hope.

Proposition (1.13-17)

Be holy in all your behaviour as the One who called you is holy.

Argument (1.18-2.10)

Becoming part of a spiritual temple.

Argument (2.11-3.12)

Submission to those in authority.

Argument (3.13-4.11)

Revere Christ in your hearts.

Argument (4.12-4.19)

Sharing in Christ's sufferings.

Argument (5.1-5)

Appeals to old and young.

Conclusion (5.6-9)

Humble yourselves under God's mighty hand and he will lift you up in due
time.

Letter Closing (5.12-14)

I write to you through Silvanus. Greetings from she who dwells in Babylon and
from my son Mark.

You should decide for yourselves whether the letter conforms to this pattern.
Regardless of the details, the overall arrangement of 1 Peter does seem to be influenced
by rhetorical conventions. As for rhetorical devices within the letter, 1 Peter contains a
fine example of chiasmus at 3.18b-4.19:

3.18b (A)

While made dead in/by flesh he was made alive in/by spirit

3.19 (B)

in/by which going to the spirits in prison he also preached

3.20a (C)

([i.e. those spirits] once unpersuaded while the Patience of God waited) in the
ark-building days of Noah

3.20b (D)

in which a few — that is, eight souls — were rescued through water, which
baptismal symbol now saves you also, not removal of flesh dirt but response of good
conscience to God through Jesus Christ's resurrection

3.22 (E)

who going into heaven is at the right hand of God, angels, authorities, and
powers made subordinate to him.

4.1-2 (D)

Therefore arm yourselves with the same mindset ([i.e.] Christ's sufferings in/by
flesh) that the one suffering in/by flesh is done with sin, as someone living no
longer in/by human desires but in/by the will of God for his/her remaining days in
flesh.

4.3-5 (C)

For the time passed by [was] enough for what the nations desire to do — living
in vices, lusts, inebriations, orgies, drinking parties, and forbidden idolatry — in
which they are astonished by your (pl.) not stampeding into the same flood of
hedonism, blaspheming you (pl.). They will have to answer to the One ready to judge
the living and dead.

4.6a (B)

For in/by this the dead were also evangelized

4.6b (A)

so that though they might have been judged in the same way as humans in/by flesh
they might live in the same way as God in/by spirit.

The parallelism between phrases marked A and B is unmistakable while that between
those marked C and D is less certain. According to this structure, the pinnacle is 3.22
(E): all things, including imprisoned spirits, are now subordinate to Jesus Christ who has
gone into the highest attainable position of authority, seated in God's realm at God's
right hand.

9.3.2. 1-3 John

The First Letter of John is an example of epideictic rather than deliberative
rhetoric: “Epideictic rhetoric is the rhetoric of praise and blame, dealing with the
values the audience already affirms, and is an attempt to enhance or intensify the
adherence to those values.”[11] According to this understanding, 1 John is addressed to insiders. Its purpose
is to reinforce right belief in those on the right side rather than to persuade anyone to
adopt new beliefs.

The purpose of writing is so that those who hear may share κοινωνια (community)
with the apostolic group, the Father, and his Son Jesus Christ.

Body (1.5-5.12)

Use of “amplification” to encourage adherence to the apostolic
message.

Conclusion (5.13-21)

The purpose of writing is to assure those who hear that if they have the Son
then they have eternal life.

According to Watson, 1 John makes extensive use of a rhetorical technique called
“amplification.” In their handbooks on rhetoric, Longinus and Cicero say
that amplification invests the subject with grandeur, provides a weighty affirmation,
lends credence by arousing emotion, exercises influence, increases the importance of a
favoured stance, and disparages an unfavoured one.[13] The following amplification techniques are used in this letter: strong words
(e.g. 3.15); augmentation (rising to a crescendo; 1.10, 2.2, 3.20); comparison (lesser to
greater to raise the greater: 3.2, 5.9); accumulation (amassing words and sentences with
identical reading all referring to the same thing: 1.1-3, 2.14, 2.16, 5.6-9);
expolitio (dwelling on the same topic yet ever saying
something new: many instances); reflexio (same word with
different meanings: καινοσ at 2.7-8); regressio
(reiteration of things said while drawing distinctions between them: 1.2, 2.18, 5.6);
conduplicatio (repetition of the same word in the same
part of speech: 2.12-14 and numerous other places);
distributio (enumerating the parts after mentioning the
whole: 2.12-14, 3.6, 5.7-8); synonomy (using different words with the same meaning: 1.1
ὁραω/θεαομαι (see), 1.9 ἁμαρτια/ἀδικια (sin), 2.29 οἱδα/γινωσκω (know)); epanaphora
(beginning successive phrases with the same word: 1.1 four uses of ὁ; 1.3 two uses of μετα
του; 1.6, 8, 10 ἐαν εἰπωμεν; 2.2 three uses of περι; 2.4, 6, 9 ὁ λεγων);
commoratio (spending a long time on an important topic
and returning to it often: 1.5-22 on sin); enargeia
(creating a mental picture: 1.1-3 seeing, hearing, and feeling the Word of Life; 2.11
walking in the dark); asyndeton (absence of connecting particles: 1.1); polysyndeton
(liberal use of connectives: 1.2, 2.16, 5.8, all using και); antithesis (juxtaposition of
contraries: 1.6-7; 2.7, 9, 10-11, 17, 23; 3.7-8; 4.2-3, 4-5, 7b-8, 10; 5.10, 12, 19),
personification (representing an absent person as present, giving a formless or mute thing
appropriate speech, form, or action: 1.7 the blood of Jesus cleanses, 2.11 darkness blinds
the eyes, 2.27 annointing abides and teaches, 5.7-8 spirit, water, and blood testify);
hyperbole (exaggeration to magnify or minify something: 3.15 hating is murder); emphasis
(more is implied than actually expressed: 2.11 walking in the dark implies stumbling, a
metaphor for moral failure); and development of commonplaces (using common topics which
apply to all forms of rhetoric such as possible-impossible, lesser-greater, virtue-vice, honour-dishonour).[14]

Amplification is correctly used throughout the epistle. It must be pointed out that
virtually every known rhetorical technique for amplification is utilized in the epistle.
The use of the repetitive figure of expolitio clearly
predominates, perhaps because it is a multifaceted technique and one central to the
exercise of the progymnasmata learned in secondary school.[15]

9.4. Are Letters of Peter and John Rhetorical Pieces?

In view of all the above, it goes without saying that 1 Peter and 1 John were produced
by rhetorically trained individuals. Who might they have been? Peter was a Galilean
fisherman and John seems to have been connected to the priestly families of Jerusalem.
Whereas they may well have received a Jewish education as boys, it is possible that they
learned the art of rhetoric during their time as apostles charged with taking the Gospel to
the whole world. After all, rhetoric was the conventional way of persuading people in the
Greco-Roman world. We see from Acts that Peter could make a fine impromptu speech when the
occasion demanded it.

Then again, there may have been individuals near to the apostles who had rhetorical
training. Silvanus might have helped Peter add rhetorical flair to his letter. Only God
knows who helped John, if he had help. There does seem to have been a group around him, as
indicated by use of “we” in 1 John. Perhaps this group included Greek converts
— such as mentioned at Acts 6.5 — who had the benefit of rhetorical education? The apostles
may have chosen people with abilities that would help evangelize the world by the most
effective possible means, just as Jesus may have recognised similar abilities in those he
chose as apostles.

9.5. An Example

9.5.1. Introduction

I have a varied background, having spent time in both the sciences and humanities. As
regards science, I have a physics degree and have even worked as a physicist, although
only in the Health Department. I also have a diploma in computer science and have worked
as a programmer. As far as the humanities are concerned, I have a theology degree and a
doctorate earned by working out a way to transcribe and collate biblical manuscript texts
so that the results could be analysed using multivariate statistics. As far as Christian
experience is concerned I am born of God, not through any merit of my own but because it
was God's good pleasure to make me his. I worked under the Order of Saint Stephen doing
children's and youth ministry in Kwinana and spent years as a volunteer leader with the
Scripture Union adventure camping program. Occasionally, people even let me preach. (I am
rarely invited back.)

You might say that this varied background gives me an unusual perspective on
Christianity. I know what it is to be a hedonist, having wasted years in the kind of
dissipation that is common among Australians. And this brings me to my point: the biggest
threat to Christianity is servants of Christ who don't do what he says. I say so because
no other threat is as insidious or demoralizing as this threat from within.

9.5.2. Worse than Education

This threat is worse than education. Education has brought us a generation that is
careful to dot its I's and cross its T's but has a total lack of moral education.
(Actually, it does have a moral education of sorts -- the kind you get when you're not
taught right from wrong.) The idea that everything we see somehow got here by itself is
everywhere pushed while the idea that it was put together by a super intellect is
everywhere disparaged.

But we have nothing to fear from education. After all, public education is a Christian
invention, as are public hospitals, laws against slavery, laws against child labour, laws
against extermination of indigenous people, and the list goes on. Indeed, public education
is the reason why women finally got educated. The equality that some women enjoy today
goes back to public education which goes back to the church which goes back to the Good
News that came to us through the Living Word of God.

As regards the idea of an old universe, Christians have nothing to fear. Who set the
fundamental constants so that they are precisely right to allow a life-supporting cosmos?
We sure didn't. But there is One who did, the Ancient of Days. Is the world six thousand
years or fourteen thousand million years old? Why not ask him? Regardless of how you date
it, the evidence that streams into us from the heavens -- the cosmic microwave background
-- tells us that there was a beginning. “In the beginning, God created the heavens
and the earth.”

And what about the end of the universe? Science is universally agreed that the
universe is going to end badly for physical life. Whether heat death or gravitational
annihilation, physical life cannot survive. Your life and all of your aspirations are
either pointless or else you hold in your hearts the message of a Life that transcends the
physical realm. Only the message first spoken by Christ carries the hope of life
everlasting.

Even the theory of evolution is not our worst enemy. So what if things are such that
DNA can mutate to produce something different? (Although mutations that give rise to
anything but detrimental effects in advanced organisms rarely happen, if ever.) No, in the
final analysis every advanced organism, from a tomato plant to a human being, contains a
DNA blueprint comprised of some number of thousands of millions of base pairs. Is fourteen
thousand million years long enough for these vital combinations to have happened by
chance? And why isn't this question part of the curriculum? We have nothing to fear in
seeking the truth.

No, our worst threat is from an elite who come up with the most toxic pieces of heresy
from within the church! They say that we can't trust the Bible, even though its essential
truth has been transmitted to us through multiply redundant channels, a sure fire way to
get the message through. They say that the New Testament is the product of later religious
imaginations who could make whatever words they liked come out of Christ's mouth, even
though the New Testament documents bear the hallmarks of the first-century apostolic
circle.

9.5.3. Worse than the Devil

This threat is worse than the Devil. Sure, the Devil uses every tactic to derail the
Gospel. He tempts us to dismiss each other, to treat our peers with contempt. He knows how
to distract people using lust for riches, sex, power, and learning. He can stack our
leadership with Freemasons, cripple us with debt, inundate us with the cares of this
world. But none of this can continue if we simply do what Christ says: “Love God
with all your heart. Love one another in the same way as I have loved you. Cast your
cares upon God because He cares for you.”

9.5.4. Worse than Oppression and Persecution

There is nothing great about oppression and persecution, but do these things kill the
Gospel? As a summary of Tertullian's Apologeticum puts it:

Every misfortune is ascribed to the Christians -- as if earthquakes never happened
until 33 AD. You say that the community suffers because of us -- we are unprofitable in
business. Yet we have to live, and buy and sell like everyone else. The only people to
suffer are the pimps and magicians! But the state really does suffer when the honest and
hardworking can be executed because they are Christians -- that really does decrease the
public revenue. So are we the only ones who are innocent? Well, we are certainly the
only ones living by a philosophy that makes us so! You say we are just another spin-off
of philosophy, then. Well why don't you persecute your philosophers when they say the
gods are fake, or bark against the emperors. Perhaps it is because the name of
'philosopher' does not drive out demons like 'Christian' does. We are not a new
philosophy but a divine revelation. That's why you can't just exterminate us; the more
you kill the more we are. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. You praise
those who endured pain and death -- so long as they aren't Christians! Your cruelties
merely prove our innocence of the crimes you charge against us. When you chose recently
to hand a Christian girl over to a brothel-keeper rather than to the lions, you showed
you knew we counted chastity dearer than life. And you frustrate your purpose. Because
those who see us die wonder why we do, for we die like the men you revere, not like
slaves or criminals. And when they find out, they join us.[16]

No, persecution and oppression strengthen the church and make it grow. What really
kills the Gospel is an insipid parroting of words without a life that follows suit.

9.5.5. The Cure

How can we be cured? The catch cry of the early Christians was “Jesus Christ,
Son of God, Saviour.” We must make this our mantra, that Jesus Christ is the cure
for every form of evil, and live in discontent until we have taken this cure to every part
of the world.

9.5.6. Conclusion

As surely as night follows day, darkness will descend if those who carry the light of
the Gospel keep it hidden. The gains of the past will be lost. Slavery will come back.
People will live in perpetual debt. (It's already happening.) Children will be sent back
down the mines. The weak will be annihilated. The naked will go unclothed. Women will fall
underfoot.

Should we expect God to intervene when we sit idly by and do nothing? Don't forget the
lesson of the Book of Judges. When the Israelites turned away from God, he allowed their
enemies to gain the upper hand. Do you care what happens to your family? Then make your
light shine. Do you care about your friends? Then purify yourselves and live a life worthy
of someone who serves God. Do you care what happens to your country? Then ask God to have
mercy on this land, even though we have turned our backs on him.

10. Women

What status do women have in the letters of Peter and John? Has the content of these
letters helped or hindered the cause of women? (It may be that the Letters of John don't
mention women at all. Is this saying something about the status of women?)

11. Persecution and Opposition

Survey the major persecutions directed against Christians in the first century after the
resurrection of Jesus. Does the persecution mentioned in 1 Peter match any of these episodes?
Who are the antagonists in John's letters? Develop profiles of the opponents mentioned or
implied in 1-3 John. What is their end?

Strecker, Georg. The Johannine Letters: A Commentary on 1, 2, and 3
John. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996. See the index entry on
“opponents.” See also the excursus on
Diotrephes, 261-63.

12. Theology

What are the major theological themes of the letters of Peter and John? Which represent
unique contributions within the New Testament? If we had only these letters, what would we
lack in our knowledge of God?

[12] Witherington, New Testament Rhetoric, 187; Watson,
“Amplification Techniques in 1 John,” 118-23. Witherington actually
thinks that the peroration covers 5.18-21. Apparently Watson thinks it covers 5:13-21
but I haven't been able to find the place where he says so.